


Limbo

by wakingdream



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Identity, Post Trespasser DLc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4868714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakingdream/pseuds/wakingdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She should have known better. After all, she was taught all her life to fear the Dread Wolf yet she had ended up running straight into his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limbo

Grief is a strange thing, she realizes. Their relationship was but a string of few but precious moments. Stolen kisses, conversations in between missions and messily scribbled notes tucked away in books that always promised more.  
Give me more time, Solas seemed to always ask. No, plead rather.  
In retrospect, time was something neither of them had.

Did she ever truly get to know him? He once acknowledged that she saw more than most, but now her memories of him, her…them…are getting hazier and hazier. Every recollection muddles her and she thinks of all the signs that she should have noticed but didn’t. She should have known better. After all, she was taught all her life to fear the Dread Wolf yet she had ended up running straight into his arms.

 

She should be triumphant really. The Inquisition may no longer exist, but she is a powerful woman in all but name. If she called, the faithful would rally behind her and this unsettles Orlais and Fereldan greatly. The few elves that do stay behind out of loyalty call her Renan’vhen and whisper rumors of another grand revolution in the making with her at the center of it all.

But power is (always) a heavy burden and she finds herself turning away from it sharply, thinking of a lonely, inconsolable but powerful man caught in between worlds.

 

Getting through the night is becoming harder and harder. A wolf always appeared in her dreams, always close but not close enough, always haunting her footsteps, always so mournful. And when she awoke, sweaty and feverish and alone, she only had the phantom pains of where her left arm should have been to remind her of her failures and mistakes.

Tonight was no different. I should have tried harder, she thinks. I should have tried to make him really see. I should have seen it coming.

The pain burns on what is left of her hand sharpens and she cries for the first time, in a long, long time. Once again, Thedas is in trouble and she feels powerless to stop it. Who is she, without the anchor anyways? She runs a hand through her knotty, bedraggled hair (Solas once called her hair the color of moonlight) and notes faintly that she hasn't really bathed for days. Or left her room in general.

 

Varric once suggested she visit her clan in hopes of cheering her up but she can't bear the thought of returning (what is left of at least). She can’t bear the questions, the heavy silences and the stares of her bare face where the proud lines of June once framed her eyes. She can’t bear the idea of coming back and settling into her old life. She’s no First anymore, she’s not anything or anybody really and it makes her feel weightless. If she has no vallaslin, doesn't believe in the gods anymore, is she truly even Dalish?

Even the Well of Sorrows is curiously silent, and she begins to dread the day when the voices come alive again. She is starting to dread everything really, dreads the way her steps feel heavy, dreads the close of nightfall and the beginnings of day, dreads the coming days ahead when inevitably, she will need to face the day.

 

The servants whisper, her former companions worry and fret and she hears the rumors and knows them all to be true. She's a wisp of her former self. And she fears, there is no going back. When she was younger, she used to find comfort in Mythal and Elgar'nan and now...there are no gods she can find comfort in any longer, she is no Dalish and she is no longer the Inquisitor. The magic that pulses through her veins hums a much slower beat than it used to before and she thinks of floating free.

 

On the days he isn’t counseling former Templars, Cullen has taken to visiting her, bringing a variety of different flowers and his excitable (but slobbery) Mabari who trails behind him lovingly. She begins to suspect he comes for more than out of duty, but out of a sort of strange comradery on having the world be shattered over and over again.

“One day at a time," He seems to say, squeezing her right hand gently. He feels warm, real and so very present. The servants giggle at him and smile knowingly at her as they tuck away the (many) flowers he brings into vases and she so, so wishes she could pretend but she feels so, so heavy and –

 

Some days are harder than others. Some days, like today, she feels like she can breathe again. The servants have opened the windows and she feel the rays of summer on her cool skin, promising her of a malleable future that is hers for the taking. But she knows, she won't ever stop trying. Not really. She is no Dalish and she may not be the Inquisitor anymore but she knows she is made of fire and the vengeful stormy sea and she will try again no matter how deep she sinks.

**Author's Note:**

> "Renan’vhen" means "Voice of the People."
> 
> Cullen and Lavellan are implied, although a bit one-sided. I think Lavellan needs some time and perhaps closure (whether it comes from herself or Solas) in order to properly commit herself in another relationship but I do want a happy ending for her. 
> 
> Sorry for the weird, angsty drabble.


End file.
